I just dreamed I was starring in a Morgan Freeman film-- I mean, the dream was the film and I was Morgan Freeman who was playing a character in the dream. In the first part of the dream, you got to know his character. He ended up in the state capitol, and then there was some kind of a mix-up which led to him having to pretend he was a Republican state senator whose views on just about everything he found objectionable. (This state senator was in fact Thurman Thomas the football player who had decided to go into politics.) Anyway, you can imagine the sort of comedy resulting from him having to learn the guy's life history in five minutes. And then there was a tense filibuster scene and he saved the day, etc., but the capitol police suddenly realised he wasn't who he claimed to be. Then there was a car chase across three states, because my dreams have BUDGET, and an unsubtle political moment where he put the cops off the scent by taking off a hoodie.

I'm just writing this down to get it out of my head so I can get on with work. TTTO the Nightmare Song from Iolanthe.

And I jump from my socks when I see a blue boxFor it must have descended from heavenAnd a man in a fez which he raises and saysNot to worry; he's only ElevenAnd he's saving the Earth for whatever it's worthFrom the threat of a Dalek disasterBut a fellow nearby has a glint in his eyeAnd I realise it must be the Master

So, did I ever tell you about my Auntie Hero? She was my aunt. And it's true, she was only an aunt, but she always strove to be a great-aunt. She was practicing her auntcraft until she could be the ideal auntie-hero, and already I found her at the centre of every strange story. If there was ever someone who could make you feel like you were helplessly lost in the middle of a children's book from the nineteen-fifties, it was Auntie Hero.

Well, Auntie Hero lived in a ramshackle house with my Uncle Stan. That was what they called him, because that's where he came from: Unclestan is the most avuncular country in the world. Everyone there has a moustache, twirlable and waxed, and when you cross the border they'll queue up to pat you on the head and tell you you've grown-- I must say it confused me the first time. Well, strictly speaking, I didn't visit Unclestan, I just visited their embassy, in Niece.

Anyway, one day it was my eighth birthday, and Auntie Hero appeared as she always did, bearing a mysterious brown paper parcel as she always did. But this time, before I could even tear the wrapping...

The doctor has put me on some tablets to help me sleep better. They're working, more or less. But now that I'm getting more time to dream, I'm finding I remember my dreams as if I'd been awake at the time. For example, I'm fairly sure I was dreaming when I had the chance to hear all four verses of the Betelgeusean Death Anthem aboard a doomed spaceship the other night.

Kit﻿ and I spent a very happy afternoon at St Mary's Church, Thorpe﻿, where they were having a pet blessing service to which Petra﻿ had invited us. We met several friendly dogs, and a rabbit. Someone I often chat to when he's working at Sainsbury's turned up with his ferrets. And Fr Damian was going to bring his cat, but she had other ideas.

We brought all three tarantulas and both millipedes. The best part, for me, was seeing people handling the creatures for the first time. A lady who may have been in her seventies said delightedly that she'd always wanted to hold a tarantula-- I think she may now be planning to get one of her own-- and a girl of about eleven was fascinated and called to her mum to take a photo of her holding Ucalegon Millipede.

In case you hadn't heard of the McLibel trial: two environmentalist protesters wrote a leaflet saying McDonald's abused their workers, took advantage of children, made their customers sick, destroyed rain forests, etc. McD's sued for libel, which led to the longest trial in English legal history, where McD's had to demonstrate in open court that these allegations were untrue, and often failed, to their great embarrassment. Large amounts of public money were spent on this.

In a twist out of "The Man Who Was Thursday", it now turns out that one of the two protesters was apparently an undercover operative for Scotland Yard, who couldn't back out for fear of breaking his cover. [Update: I was a bit confused. The story says that the leaflet was *written* by the undercover cop, who then vanished leaving the two protesters to face the music.]

You may recall when we learned a year ago that the same operative had infiltrated another group, impregnated one of its members, and then disappeared never contacting the woman or her child or paying any support, again in order not to blow his cover.

Today I sat on a railway platform, eavesdropping on a conversation between two railwaymen. I learned from this that instructions have just come down from the powers that be to prepare for a royal funeral, by which they surmised was meant Philip. This will involve a week of extra trains to Windsor, for people who want to see him lying in state and sign his book, and corresponding changes along the line. There is some sort of plan to prevent trains stopping at Windsor if the place is gets crowded. The stationmaster at Windsor has been given a deadline to produce a plan to implement all this, and they have been promised they'll be told a full day before the media if he's given a short time to live: good luck keeping that quiet. Anyway, I thought you might like to know if you use the railways around here.

"I went, as usual about this time, to hear F.D. Maurice preach at Lincoln's Inn. I suppose I must have heard him, first and last, some thirty or forty times, and never carried away one clear idea, or even the impression that he had more than the faintest conception of what he himself meant. Aubrey de Vere was quite right when he said that listening to him was like eating pea-soup with a fork, and Jowett's answer was no less to the purpose, when I asked him what a sermon which Maurice had just preached at the University was about, and he replied—'Well! all that I could make out was that today was yesterday, and this world the same as the next.'" - Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff (1829-1906)

I have always been bothered by those adverts where some wrinkled person who was famous thirty years ago reminds you in a slow voice that you'll be needing funeral insurance one of these days. They're so bloody patronising. It's such a worry for your relatives if you don't have funeral insurance, and if you sign up for ours, we'll send you a carriage clock absolutely free, because we know what you like, you old fart, you like carriage clocks. That's your whole life right there, polishing and admiring your carriage clock, trying not to think about all the time you haven't got left.